Insomnia
by Brighid45
Summary: Just a slightly angsty one-shot that showed up when sleep proved elusive. Enjoy and please read and review, thanks.


Three thirty a.m.

You lie in bed, staring at the dim patterns of ambient light from the window as they drape softly over various objects in the room. It's been about an hour since you woke, shivering and gasping, in the grip of some dream you cannot remember. It was bad, you know that much; there's no real desire or need on your part to recall anything more.

With a sigh you roll over, holding your ruined thigh with care so the muscles don't spasm, but of course they do anyway. The relaxant Nolan prescribed for you isn't strong enough; you'll have to tell him when you meet again in a couple of days, because you doubled the dose tonight and it still hasn't helped. You rub the tight ridges of the scar, wishing for the thousandth time in the last few hours that the pain would let up enough to allow some restorative sleep. It was a bad day, a seven on the good old Scale O' Hurtin', and it hasn't shown any signs of ending yet.

After several futile attempts at finding a comfortable position you finally turn on the bedside lamp. In the clutter atop the nightstand is a gift from a friend, a new mp-three player with a good set of earphones, not those crappy little buds that hurt like hell but a nice cushy seventies-style set that feel like clouds and let you hear the musicians turn pages and use breathing cues and scrape their chair legs on the cheap linoleum floor of the recording studio as they move and sway and lean forward while they play.

You sort through the offerings on the menu and settle for Dave Brubeck's Time Out—comfort food. You still remember the first time you heard 'Take Five'. You couldn't have been more than four. Someone brought the album over for your mother, thinking she might enjoy it; god knows why, she'd never liked jazz of any kind. She'd given it no more than a passing listen but you'd played it over and over, especially that track. The odd meter had fascinated you, tugged at you, sent you to the piano to figure it out until at last Mom had tired of your endless plunking and showed you the places where your fingers went, where they rested on the keys to make the right sounds that fit the music. Listening to the recording, you can still feel an echo of the deep, trembling thrill, the delight of the rightness of Brubeck's tight, precise five/four syncopation anchoring Joe Morello's free-form drums, Eugene Wright's quiet bass line allowing the intimate breath of Paul Desmond's alto sax melody to sing like a night bird in soft velvet blackness.

Now you turn out the light, ease into the pillows and listen to the familiar rhythms, feeling the music fill you in a cool, slow flow. Your hands play the sheets lightly, caressing invisible keys. You were in college the first time you jammed this chart with a couple of guys from your frat. It was just a pickup band but you had some good sessions together; you were all serious travelers, at least where music was concerned. The three of you had gone on to med school and residency, passed your boards, but you know one of the guys doesn't play anymore. He doesn't do anything anymore, because he was killed by a drunk driver in a head-on collision five years ago, taking his family out for ice cream. The other guy is settled into a quiet life in the Midwest somewhere, Ohio or maybe Indiana. You get a Christmas card from him now and then—a fucking _Christmas_ card, for god's sake. You've never sent one back.

You think about what it would be like to have regular working hours, maybe even a family, or at least someone sleeping in the bed beside you who doesn't get paid to be there. When other people are around, you scoff and mock and ridicule the idea of you involved in something as kinky as a marriage with offspring, but when you can't sleep you think about it, about the lack of anything resembling normalcy in the way you live. You remember what John Henry said to you about no woman with a drink and a kiss waiting. Once upon a time you told yourself it was a fair tradeoff, getting to solve the damn puzzles you see everywhere whether you want to or not. Now, after your breakdown and in the process of treatment you know it's a lie, but it's one you're used to, an untruth you can ignore enough of the time to get you through.

But if you're honest with yourself, and god knows you can't be anything else at this hour, it's really about the goddamn pain. You're never alone; there's always a number right there beside you, faithful and inescapable as an obsessed lover. The number leaves no room for anyone else. It will always take precedence; there's even a fairly good chance it will get bigger as the years circle round and round. You can't think of anyone willing to take on a relationship with that third party wedged between you both, hogging the bed and using up all the hot water in the morning.

At least the music doesn't care if you're in pain. It's the only thing that helps stitch together the rags of your sanity, most days. It is uninterested in judging, condemning, lecturing, poking or prodding at you. Music offers a sweet reciprocity, an easement of the tightness inside your head and heart. You won't go as far as to say it brings hope, because you know there isn't any, not for you. But it allows you a glimpse of beauty in a world often filled with sordid, dreary sameness, and that's enough. It has to be.

Half an hour before your alarm goes off you slip into light sleep at last, the crisp five/four pattern of Dave's piano accompanying you into the darkness.


End file.
